More Cake: Chocolate Clementine w/ Blood Orange Icing

I feel like I am living in a strange food universe lately.

Everyone keeps talking about "clean eating" (what is that anyway?); eating "Paleo"; "Whole 30"; "Whole Life Challenge"; Gluten-free, gluten-free and gluten-free.

If I read one more person give a hotel or restaurant a bad review on Yelp or Trip-advisor because their meal wasn't gluten free, I am going to SCREAM!

I respect your choice not to eat bread (hopefully, because you have celiac disease and can't digest gluten), but please don't hate my pizza man for not making you a g.f. pie, especially when he is famous for his yeast breads (you know who you are!).

Jimmy Kimmel, the late night talk show host, recently interviewed people on the street and every one of them was gluten free, and every one of them had no idea what GLUTEN was! It was hilarious (click here to see the interview and chuckle).

Am I one of the few people left on the planet that eats pasta, bread and cake?
It seems that way.

I need to change my evil ways.

I eat it in moderation, and I am lucky that I can digest gluten. I don't eat it everyday, only because I don't want to gain weight (which is easy to do now that I am over 40).

I do understand and respect other peoples' dietary restrictions, but please don't write to me asking me to stop posting cakes.

I will never stop posting cakes, ever.
Cakes are celebratory and delicious, and I love them (pie not so much).

What would a birthday be without a cake? (or cupcakes?).

I love quinoa, but how much quinoa can one person eat?

Enough ranting.
If you won't eat the cake, then just look at the pictures (I promise to post a quinoa recipe next week).

On that note, here's your Valentine's Day dessert!

I made you a delicious, simple clementine/chocolate cake with no butter at all, just olive oil.
And instead of powdered sugar, I went all out and used my last blood orange to make pink icing and candied oranges!

Very festive, aren't I?

The original recipe for the cake bakes it in a 9" round pan, which I will use next time, but I felt like like a loaf cake, so that was that.

Juls, who is from Tuscany, was kind enough to translate the recipe for me from Italian, and she even converted the metric measurements for me to US! What a gal! Thank you Juls.

It's hard to believe with just 3 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil that this cake was SO MOIST.
Well, it was!

This was my last blood orange in the fridge, so I am done until next year.

You know I am icing challenged, but I still thought the presentation was decent.

Chocolate Clementine Cake w/ Candied Blood Oranges & Pink Icing: (cake adapted from Jul's Kitchen, icing adapted from Annie Eats)

For the cake:

3 eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
120g (3/4 cup - 4,23 oz) dark chocolate (I buy the Trader Joe's 1 lb. bar 72% dark)
50 g (3 1/2 tablespoons) extra virgin olive oil
juice and zest of 2 organic clementines
100g (1 cup lightly packed - 3,53 oz) almond flour or almond meal
100g (1/2 cup - 3,53 oz) flour
8g (2 1/2 teaspoons) baking powder
a pinch salt

Mix the eggs w/ the sugar in a large bowl.

In a bain marie (or microwave), heat your chocolate and stir with a silicone spatula until smooth.
Add the zest, juice and olive oil to the chocolate and mix together.

Add the chocolate and juice mixture to the eggs and sugar and mix until smooth.

Add in the flours, salt and baking powder to the wet ingredients to make a nice batter.

Pour batter into a 9" cake tin that has been lined with parchment paper. I used a 9" loaf pan, and had very good results (I always line my cake tins with paper so they don't stick).

Bake in a 350F oven for 25 minutes, until the top is crispy, but middle is still moist.

Let cool on a cake rack and remove from the tin. When cake is cooled, dust w/ powdered sugar or fancy pink icing.

For the candied oranges:

1 blood orange, sliced thinly w/ a serrated knife
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

Simmer the orange slices w/ the sugar water for 15-20 minutes, carefully turning them once (next time, I would not slice them in halves, they fell apart, I will leave the slices round).

Lay out on a wax paper or parchment lined tray to dry. They stay in the fridge for a long time.
Because careful with the pink syrup, it sticks to everything!

For the pink icing:

1 cup of confectioners sugar (powdered)
3 tbsp blood orange juice (so it will turn pink!)

Mix icing with a fork until it is the consistency you like then spread it over the cake, or drizzle it on.

Lay the candied orange slices on top of the icing.

So moist and delicious!
This cake is a winner.

Let them eat cake is what I say!